Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Classified Documents Report

(Left) Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. (Right) Former President Donald Trump attends his trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Dec. 7, 2023. Drew Angerer, David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday blocked the release of a special counsel’s final report into President-elect Donald Trump, pending a decision by an appeals court.

The order bars special counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from releasing the report until the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals reviews a motion submitted by Trump’s co-defendants.

“Pending resolution of the Emergency Motion filed in the Eleventh Circuit ... Attorney General Garland, the Department of Justice, Special Counsel Smith, all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals are temporarily enjoined” from releasing or transmitting the final report, Cannon’s order stated.

This week, Trump co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira asked Cannon to prevent the release of Smith’s report in the classified documents case, which accused Trump of illegally retaining sensitive materials after leaving office.

Smith also accused Nauta and De Oliveira of obstruction-related crimes. Trump and the two men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The two co-defendants noted in court papers that Smith’s appeal of Cannon’s dismissal of charges against the men is still pending and that the disclosure of pejorative information about them will be prejudicial.

The release of Smith’s report, the pair argued to Cannon in court filings this week, “would directly infringe on Nauta’s and De Oliveira’s Fifth Amendment due process rights, taking on the status of a public form of an invalid new indictment, replete with unfairly prejudicial assertions of alleged offenses going well beyond any assertions in the indictment and other public filings.”

According to federal law, special counsels are required to provide the attorney general with a confidential report “explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.”

Separately, Trump’s attorneys told Attorney General Merrick Garland in a letter that after they reviewed Smith’s draft final report, they believe that it would violate “fundamental norms regarding the presumption of innocence, including with respect to third parties unnecessarily impugned by Smith’s false claims.”

“Because Smith has proposed an unlawful course of action, you must countermand his plan and remove him promptly,” Trump’s lawyers said in their letter, adding that “if Smith is not removed, then the handling of his report should be deferred to President Trump’s incoming attorney general.”

And, in a court motion on Monday, attorneys for the defendants asserted that because Nauta and De Oliveira still face the threat of criminal prosecution, the final report could prejudice those proceedings.

“As the Government knows, the continued operation of the protective order in this case will make the one-sided impermissible Final Report even more unfairly prejudicial; Defendants are strictly precluded from refuting the Report,” they wrote.

In a filing on Monday evening, Smith’s team provided details of the timeline for releasing the report, saying the attorney general will not release the document until at the earliest, Friday morning.

“The Attorney General has not yet determined how to handle the report volume pertaining to this case, about which the parties were conferring at the time the defendants filed the motion,” Smith’s team wrote.

After the election, Smith moved to dismiss his classified documents case and his separate election-related case against Trump, citing Department of Justice rules around not prosecuting presidents.

Before the election, Trump also had indicated in several media interviews that he would fire Smith as special counsel.

Responding to Cannon’s decision on Tuesday, Trump hailed the decision during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Smith’s team and the DOJ “lost in court in front of a very strong and a very brilliant judge,” Trump said, referring to Cannon. He also accused Smith of wanting to release a “500-page report” that would be filled with what he described as “fake” information meant to denigrate him.

So far, Garland has made public in their entirety the reports produced by special counsels who operated under his watch, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information and John Durham’s report on the FBI’s Russia investigation.

Zachary Stieber and The Associated Press contributed to this report.